Video Game Makers Unveil Consumer Rating System : Retail: Lawmakers cheer move designed to keep objectionable material from children. Labels on computer software are likely too.
Hoping to head off federal intervention in their industry, the nation’s largest video game makers Friday jointly introduced a rating system to warn consumers of graphic violence or explicit sexual content in their products.
Industry officials said that parents trying to keep objectionable material out of their children’s hands can expect to see games labeled with rating icons, which will explain whether certain video games are appropriate for different age groups. Text describing the game’s content also will be printed on each package or cartridge.
However, parents buying personal computer software likely will have to face a second set of ratings, which were also unveiled Friday by computer game makers, who plan to label their products with different symbols and textual warnings of violence, nudity and profanity.
Lawmakers and child-development experts cheered the release of the ratings but said that development of a single set of labels would serve consumers better.
“With a rating system, parents will have at least a fighting chance to control what comes into their homes,” said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), who has spearheaded the drive for video game ratings since the release of controversial games such as Mortal Kombat, which contains scenes showing a martial-arts fighter tearing the spine out of an opponent.
The video game labeling system will affect titles scheduled for release this holiday season and afterward, including Doom, in which a player wielding weapons from a handgun to a chain saw attacks opponents, and possibly Mortal Kombat II.
Industry officials projected that 40% of the games sold this Christmas season and virtually all games sold next fall will carry the ratings. But the labels will not apply to games already in stores.
Still, announcement of the ratings comes as a crucial step for an industry that is struggling to maintain credibility with parents and a responsible public image. A spokeswoman for Nintendo of America said that about 40% of American households have a Nintendo game machine and she estimated that 20% of the most popular games are somewhat violent.
Lieberman and Sen. Herbert Kohl (D-Wis.) introduced legislation earlier this year to set up a national commission to regulate the industry but said they would withdraw the plan if game makers police themselves.
The threat of federal regulation sent Nintendo, Sega of America Inc. and other game makers, who sell about $5 billion worth of cartridges and compact disc games annually, scrambling to develop their own warning labels but video game industry officials said they now plan to fold the individual rating plans into one.
However, officials from the Interactive Digital Software Assn., which represents Nintendo, Sega, Acclaim Entertainment Inc. and other video game publishers, have been unable to reach an agreement with the Software Publishers Assn., which represents computer game makers, on how the ratings should work.
Under the software association’s system, game makers would submit videotapes, story boards, scripts and other material detailing the most extreme content of their games to panels of three “demographically diverse” people, each of whom must be at least 21 years old, at the newly created Entertainment Software Rating Board in New York.
Game makers could be fined or barred from selling a product if they try to hide extreme material.
The panelists, who will undergo training in the rating system, will recommend which label each game should carry after studying the materials.
The software association has spent more than $1 million developing the ratings but said the board will be independent and will become self-sufficient by charging game makers $500 per game. Each review is expected to take about a week.
Before games are shipped, they will be classified for five age groups: early childhood, which includes games for children 3 and older; children to adults, for those 6 and older; teen, for 13 and older; mature, for 17 and older; and adults only, for 18 and older.
“Early childhood” games would contain no objectionable content and could include games featuring characters such as Barney the Dinosaur. “Kids to adults” games could include cartoon-style violence. “Teen” games could include scenes of graphic violence with minimal blood, similar to Street Fighter, a popular sparring game. “Mature” games could feature graphic, Mortal Kombat-style violence. “Adults only” games could include extremely graphic violence or sexual themes, such as those portrayed in Night Trap, which contains bloody attacks on scantily clad women.
In the Software Publishers-designed plan, reviewers would not view game videos for content and would not label the games according to age groups. Instead, computer game makers would respond to questionnaires about their products from a new Recreational Software Advisory Council and attest that they had answered honestly.
Toys R Us and Wal-Mart, the nation’s two largest retailers of video games, have vowed to sell only rated products and a Wal-Mart official said Friday that the company will not carry any sexually explicit games.
Wal-Mart plans to display signs explaining the new video game rating system in its stores, but enforcing the ratings by demanding proof of age with each purchase would probably be “cumbersome,” the company official said.
2 Types of Video Warning Signals
Prototypes of the two rating systems developed by video and computer game makers to warn parents about content:
IDSA SYSTEM:
IDSA includes Nintendo, Sega, Atari and nine other game makes. The games are played on units hooked up to a television.
Labels will designate the age group fro which the game is designed.
SPA SYSTEM:
The SPA represents makers of games played on personal computers.
Violence: Destruction of living things.
Nudity/Sex: Revealing attire
Language: Mild expletives
Symbols will rate level of violence, nudity, sex and language on scale of 1 to 4.
Sources: Associated Press, trade association
